Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Finally, The Chairman Has Come Back...

...home.

If there's one thing that I miss, it's watching The Rock on WWF.

I had some travel misadventures, and the moral of the story is actually more of a line from Stone Cold Steve Austin. Which goes, "DTA, Rock. Don't trust anybody." Now, what happened on TV was that the Rock got wide-eyed, and then turned around just in time to get kicked in the stomach and dished a Stone Cold Stunner, as prophesized by Austin 3:16. What happened to me was that I ended up hanging out in the Vegas airport for way too long, eating overpirced airport food, and having to negotiate with US Air employees for way too long. Oh yeah. And I managed to get home only through a long-distance, last-ditch Hail Mary. Otherwise, I'd still probably be in Phoenix. Which wouldn't be so bad, except for that my professors would have me killed upon my arrival in Champaign.

My problem was simple. The folks at US Air have a very bad information network. I got to the airport in plenty of time, as I never check baggage, and usually do the self-check in that they have at the electronic kisoks. Only this time, it wouldn't let me take care of it there, for no goo reason, so I had to wait in line (which was about 90 minutes). So, while I was waiting in line, I tried to get through to US Air's customer service, only they were so backlogged with calls that no one ever picked up. By the time I got up front, I had missed the window to check-in by about 5 minutes. Which meant that I was screwed.

Long story short, (if you want details, I suppose that you could e-mail me), I finally get home way later than expected, way more tired than expected, and way more surly than expected. let's just say that it involved an early morning pickup from the airport in Chicago, an overnight drive to Bloomington, eating a lot of fatty, smoked, pork products at Denny's (which was actually wonderful), and finally driving back to Champaign. Upon which I slept. A lot. Part of the exhaustion was my fault. I just had to go gamble until really, really late on Saturday night, and then drive out to the airport on 2 hours of sleep. But then again, that's just how I roll.

So today, oddly enough, after 11 days on the road, the one thing that I wanted to do was fire up my stove. Nothing fancy, but there's something therapeutic about dicing onions and peppers and sauteeing sausage. I'm still groggy, despite sleeping a lot, but have to get back to work. And in all honesty, I need to hit the gym. So, I'm a bit behind the 8-ball right now. But the next couple days will be nice and productive. Back to adult ed for research, write out a chapter or two on my dissertation, do a first pass at a revision of a paper, and set up some sessions to collect data with Korean people.

I've been watching the Illini out of the corner of my eye, though I did get a chance to see the Penn St. game on TV. I like how we're moving the ball on offense, and I think that our defense will be strong enough to keep us in games. We'll have a good shot to take care of Iowa, and make me a prophet - to this point, the only game that I've been wrong on has been at Purdue (which I changed my thoughts on at the start of the Big Ten season, thanks to Jig). We probably can't get the 3 seed, but if Indiana chokes, and Michigan St. doesn't pull off two upsets, I think that we will get to the Big Ten finals, beat Wisconsin in our run-back.

I haven't chimed in on the whole Jamar thing. I will say that as soon as the report came out that the accident happened late on the 12th, a Monday night, I knew that alcohol was likely involved. It didn't really start snowing for real until about 2am on Tuesday morning. So, I was expecting the worst. I wasn't expecting to hear that Jamar left Carlwell there to die. But hey, I'd probably do the same. I mean, what's the point in sitting there waiting to watch someone die when you could just go back to the apartment to make a sandwich and have a Diet Coke? I don't like to be all reactive, and like "Oh, I've got to stay with my friend and teammate because they are dying." I'm more proactive, and like, "Sucks to be that guy. Man, I'm hungry. Let's go make a tasty sandwich with a little fried egg, some ham, and a nice slice of melted provolone." After all, you can't look back and change the past, right? So I can totally see why Jamar did what he did.

The biggest down-side to this is that we sort of lose depth in our guard rotation, and will likely have to give Calvin major minutes. He'll make us a bit more athletic, but I really hope that he continues to improve on offense, both with and without the ball. We also lose some depth up front, but Marcus has stepped up his game, playing pretty effectively on offense, and reasonably well on D. But it could be that a shorter rotation works out well for us. We'll see.

Plus, a couple days in practice without a game coming up will help things solidify just a little more.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to an interesting Dance this March. We'll see how smart I am when the brackets come out.

-Chairman

Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Chief is Dead, Long Live the Chief

Well, I guess that we don't get to have our organized celebration of racism during halftime anymore. Which, makes me sad. Because I'm nothing if not overtly racist. Oh well. Actually, over the years, I've become more and more "Chief-Indifferent." I guess that I don't really care about whether or not we have a white dude dancing around in an Indian costume. When I first got to college back when Lewis & Clark first set off for the American west, I thought that I would be a chief supporter for the rest of my life. But over the years, my stance has softened. I mean, it's cool and all that we had tradition. But what I don't like is to hear people bitching. Particularly dumb people, who tend to be the loudest. I think that if it'll shut dumb people up, then killing off the Chief is something that I'm okay with.

Besides. They really should have sent the Chief to a tanning booth. All I could think about whenever I saw the Chief was, "God, this guy is so white." Seriously. If you ever paid attention to the Chief's feet, you couldn't help but laugh.

But, I still think that it would be sweet for students to dress up like the Indians and run around Assembly Hall with the cheerleaders during the first TV timeout of the 2nd half. Or better yet, not even dress up like the Chief, but like Native Americans in the modern day, which tends to hvae a lot of denim and shirts bearing alcohol/tobacco logos and something with turquoise, from what I've seen from the casinos (which is the extent of my knowledge about Native Americans). That would be sweet.

Maybe our new mascot can be a cowboy.

Anyway, back in Vegas, after driving all around Cali. Incredible terrain out there. I'm envious. And ready to move out west. Last night, it because Vegas 2, Chairman 0. More incredible ways to lose hands on the river. Let's just say that I got coolered on a couple big hands, and the river brutalized me. Oh well. Back at it tonight, in all likelihood. Because I'm a glutton for punishment. Maybe I'll settle it down and play in some sit'n'go's, which I'm more familiar with. We'll see.

Overall, I'm not sure if I like Vegas. Don't get me wrong. I love gambling. But I'm not sure about everything else. I'm not into shows - no need for me to go see Cirque, Wayne Newton, or Celine Dion. There some really high-end food, but most everything else is so-so. I don't buy into paying heavy cover charges for clubs. I don't pay for sex. And I'm not really into neon lights. But, damn, if I don't love gambling. Maybe it's a wash :-)

Well, I'm ostensibly here for a conference. Have a reception tonight, and some sessions to hit tomorrow and Saturday. And I'm sure that I'll find something interesting to do in between.

-Chairman

Friday, February 16, 2007

Driving With the Windows Down.

Vegas and LA are warmer than Illinois during the winter months. Suckers.

Well, so long Chief. We knew it was coming. I didn't really care much either way, though I'm annoyed that the NCAA had the power to influence this. I'm more of a "state's rights" sort of guy when it comes to this stuff. However, if this were the NBA, David Stern would have quashed this much, much sooner.

So, I'm making a call - next year, at some point (maybe on multiple occasions) we'll see a student dressed up as Chief running across the field or the court. Maybe we can have a Paint the Hall Chief game, where we all dress up like Indians.

In my fantasy basketball league, I'm torn between picking up Rudy Gay or Tim Hardaway.

I definitely flew to Vegas on the Thursday afternoon before All-Star Weekend. My flight from Bloomington left me a 2 hour layover in O'Hare. I'm sitting there eating some food at a greasy Greek deli place, when I look up and see P.J. Brown there. And a few minutes later, Tyrus Thomas walks up to chill. And then I start looking around, and there are definitely multiple black dudes in pimp suits. Lots of track jackets and bling. The best part was that there were also a bunch of floozies in slutty outfits. The NBA - I love this game. It was like a dressed up version of when I hang out at Harold's. Needless to say, I was right at home.

Quote of the flight - black dudes are walking down the aisle, and one of them goes, "Damn, nigga. It's like, 'Soul Plane' up in here. How awesome is that?

The flight was pretty cool. I got along with the folks that were sitting next to me - Charles and Tamisha, a couple from Chicago heading out to the game. It definitely helped that they had a portable DVD player, and the guy popped in the Roy Jones Jr. Greatest Knockouts DVD. I forgot how good Jones Jr. was, and I forgot how much I enjoyed watching good boxing. And I forgot how much black people love seeing people get knocked out. After me and Charles start watching and talking boxing, two black girls behind us start watching. Lots of, "Damn!" "Oh shit!" "He knocked that nigga out!" "He broke that nigga's ribs!" And that was just what came out of my mouth. I don't even remember what they were saying.

Even after the DVD, we had some good conversation. We got talking for a while, and Tamisha brings up that her little cousin is one of the Illini's big basketball recruits next year, and she wanted him to contact me about classes, life on campus, and whatever else. So, if you see one of our incoming freshman accused of some alleged recruiting or extra-benefits violations, I'll probably be prominently involved. Because I'm awesome.

If you're keeping score on my gambling tally, it's Vegas 1, Chairman 0. Let's just say that limit hold'em is not my game. I had a game that I could break, but was drowned twice on the river for pretty large pots. Let's just say that instead of doubling up my stack in 35 minutes, I lost half my stack. I should've just quit and called it a night, but instead, I decide to enter a no-limit tourney. My first live tourney. Little 2 table game, with blinds moving up quickly - a lot like the sit 'n go's that I play on Pokerstars, only moving a little faster. I should've cashed, but I forgot one of the rules that I frequently forget in my home game. You can't bluff bad players. I was a little unlucky when my pocket Q's got outran by A-K, which took me from a big stack back to a medium stack. But I was dumb and crippled myself when I tried to make a play on some guy, who called a raise with a questionable hand, and then hit top pair on the board when I tried to continue. Needless to say, I'm a moron.

Happily, I closed out the night with In 'n Out Burger. Which was good. Though not as good as everyone says it is, and not as good as Fatburger. More on this later.

I'm off to LA in a few minutes. We'll see if a little break from gambling can give me a second wind for next week.

-Chairman

Monday, February 12, 2007

The New Economy

So it turns out that you can buy churches if you talk to the pastor. And if you happen to be a pastor who wants a German car and a laptop, you can probably sell things that you don't own.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Church-Sold.html

I mean, if you read this article, this dude is pretty clever, and pretty charismatic. Sounds a lot like the shrewd manager that we keep reading about in the Bible. Can a run for office in California be that far away?

This changes quite a bit for me. I've always wanted a new BMW. Maybe I can start selling off some of the buildings here at the university.

-Chairman